Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 19, 2000
History has its treacherous
shoals and none should know this better than Marxists who premise their
praxis on what they regard as its inexorable unfolding.
They are a demoralised
lot after the disintegration of the former Soviet Union, the rejection
of Marxism by Eastern Europe and China s lurch towards a market economy.
And it now seems that what some in this country considered to be one of
the last bastions of this beleaguered ideology, the Communist Party of
India (Marxist), is facing a decline. The party, the principal constituent
of the coalition governments ruling the states of West Bengal, Kerala and
Tripura recently suffered a major setback in the defeat of the Left Front
candidate, Mr Gurudas Dasgupta, at the hands of his rival from Trinamool
Congress, Mr Bikram Sarkar, in the Lok Sabha by-election in Panskura, West
Bengal.
Immediately in its wake,
it suffered further embarrassment when West Bengal's Transport Minister,
Mr Subhash Chakravorti, once again plunged into what seems to have become
his favourite pastime cocking a snook at the party s leadership in the
State and accused the West Bengal and the Central Governments of having
done nothing for daily wage workers in the unorganised sector. When the
secretary of the CPI(M) s West Bengal State Committee, Mr Anil Biswas,
retorted that Mr Chakravorti could resign if he wished to, the latter defiantly
dismissed the suggestion.
It is not in West Bengal
alone that the CPI(M) is passing through squally weather. In Tripura, continuing
tribal insurgency has cast a shadow over its Government, while in Kerala
it is having problems with two of its coalition partners, the Communist
Party of India (CPI) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) over the
forthcoming elections to the Rajya Sabha. Of course, it alone cannot be
blamed for the insurgency in Tripura which predates its Government. Local
circumstances and personal factors have complicated things in Kerala. In
West Bengal, it would have been a miracle if 23 long years in office had
not dented its popularity. But then, the fact also remains that 75 years
after the formation of the undivided CPI from which it is descended and
37 years after its emergence as a separate party, the CPI(M) has not been
able to extend its influence in a significant way beyond West Bengal, Kerala
and Tripura. In fact, thanks to its policy of playing second fiddle to
the Mandalite forces in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it has lost much of the
following it had built up in these states.
In fact, playing second
fiddle has almost been the second nature of Communists. They have always
followed either the Chinese or the Russian line and have never been able
to evolve an independent ideological position in tune with Indian realities.
There has been no Indian Togliatti, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping or Ho Chih
Minh. Hence, instead of being able to give a new ideological approach to
Communists in India and the world as the crisis in the international Communist
movement unfolded, they have been plunged into confusion which has lent
sterility to their politics. It is now undermining their principal political
asset organisational strength whose instrumental use largely accounts for
their success so far.
